Prior to law school, I volunteered as a teacher in a radical,
anti-oppressive education collective in an American jail. (1) Each
teacher periodically wrote and taught a new curriculum based on student
input, interest, and preference. In addition to providing educational
opportunities within the jail, one of the main goals of the collective
was to resist the carceral state through education. These are the
radical elements of our program, as I understood them: (1) there were no
hierarchies in the classroom; (2) we would not teach GED (2) or other
any other curricula approved by the Department of Corrections (DOC) and
the topics were student-selected; and (3) we would not require our
students to participate in class lessons. As long as students who did
not want to participate in the lessons did not interrupt those who
wanted to, they were free to stay and interact--or not--as they chose.

Of the many reasons I enjoyed this model, I was very glad that it
allowed me to use my privilege as someone on the outside to help those
on the inside resist an oppressive and illegitimate system. By simply
being in the classroom and allowing the students to engage as they so
chose, I was able to help these students enjoy a respite from the tumult
of general population (Gen Pop), (3) and the surveillance of
Correctional Officers (COs). Our classes were rich, and engaging, and
hilarious, and heartbreaking. Over my time there, we discussed a panoply
of topics--from how to choose a mortgage with the best annual percentage
rate, to how to effectively message the dangers of climate change. The
classes were wonderful, and, most importantly, our conversations were
private and free.

I spent more time getting inside the jail than I did in the
classroom. Traveling from my office to the classroom took about two and
a half hours, give or take. It took approximately an hour and a half to
get to the jail, and about an hour to process in, depending on the
circumstances. From the moment class ended, it took another hour to
process back out. Because I would come at a regular time once a week, I
spent a lot of my time processing in with COs and other jail staff.
Sitting in waiting rooms, sitting on buses, walking through metal
detectors, buzzing in through bars: I spent all of this time with DOC
employees.

The more time I spent with them and the better our rapport, the
faster the process of getting inside and to the classroom seemed to go.
The bus driver would wait a couple of extra minutes to take me from the
processing center to the jail; the officer who escorted me back to the
classroom would arrive to take me almost immediately, instead of making
me wait in the cold.

Though these perks were nice for me, my warm rapport seemed to have
even better outcomes for the students. Once I checked in at the front
desk, the COs would actually go to each housing unit and call the
students down to the classroom. As to be expected in a prison, this
process was unpredictable and unreliable--when I first began
volunteering, students would report that the COs had not called their
unit the previous week and that is why no one had shown up. In the later
months of my volunteering, after I had established a working
relationship with the COs and other DOC staff, I noticed that the COs
were much more consistent with calling down students than they had been
at the beginning. My conversations--consistent and friendly
conversations--my warmth, and my willingness to listen had greased the
wheels of the jail so effectively that the classes were running like a
well-oiled machine. I got to the classroom more quickly, the classrooms
were full, and we had nearly two hours of interrupted class time wherein
the students were free to express themselves without the immediate
burden of being in Gen Pop.

To put it simply, by engaging with the DOC and its staff with a
smile, I was able to facilitate an act of resistance inside the
DOC's own walls. Though the class could have continued even if I
had not built relationships with the staff members that I interacted
with regularly, I believe that my particular class would not have been
as successful because the students would have had fewer opportunities
and less time to spend inside the classroom and away from Gen Pop.

Reflecting on this experience as an instance of engaging the
oppressor, I am satisfied with the decisions that the collective and I
made to stage acts of resistance inside the jail. I have spoken to
abolitionists who say that undergoing the process of being certified to
volunteer in the jail, and complying with its rules and policies,
undermines the project's value because it legitimizes the
DOC's existence. While I understand that perspective, and even feel
a similar aversion toward some conventional prison education programs, I
think that this project toed the line of empowering people who were
incarcerated to hold their own space inside a brutal situation. I could
think of no more effective way to directly and immediately uplift the
people incarcerated in that jail than to help them have a couple of
hours of relative freedom without expectation.

In this situation, the project of engaging the oppressor was driven
primarily by the students and the legitimacy of our decisions came from
their desire to be in the classroom. I, and many of the other teachers,
engaged in anti-carceral and abolitionist causes separate from our
involvement in the teaching project, because these efforts were not
appropriate for the project. Demonstrating directly against the DOC
under the auspices of the project would imperil our ability, and thus
the students' ability, to be in the classroom.

Though this movement was not nearly as large or profound as the
other movements we discussed during the Engaging the Oppressor
roundtable, I think it faces many of the same questions that these
larger movements face. How do activists reconcile the needs of the
movement with the confines and strictures of system it challenges? Who
ultimately guides our decisions when engaging with the oppressor? What
role can and should law play in these movements?

These questions continue to guide my experience in law school.
Though I came to law school planning to use the law as a tool of
liberation, my time in this rarefied space requires me to constantly
reconsider if, and how, law -- a costly and hierarchical practice--can
lead to real liberation.

Faith Barksdale ([dagger])

([dagger]) is a student at Yale Law School.

(1.) Unlike in other countries, the United States criminal legal
system draws a sharp distinction between the terms "jail" and
"prison." Jails and prisons are usually separate buildings.
Jails house people who are in pre-trial, or who have been sentenced to a
term of incarceration for less than a year. Prisons house people who
have been sentenced to a term of one year or more.

(2.) The General Educational Development (GED) exam. The exam is
usually administered in lieu of a traditional high school education and
is often taken by older students whose high school education was
interrupted. Passing the exam provides a certification equivalent to a
conventional high school diploma. In the city where I volunteered,
teaching a GED curriculum in a correctional institution required
approval from DOC.

(3.) "General population" refers to the portion of the
prison or jail population that is not held in a specialized unit and may
also refer to the places where incarcerated people congregate when not
presently in their cell, receiving medical care, or involved in
programming. In this jail, as in many, Gen Pop was often chaotic and
stressful.

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